


You Remind Me of Someone

by AndraB74



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:41:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25170292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndraB74/pseuds/AndraB74
Summary: Nairobi and Berlin share a moment late at night on the balcony in Toledo.
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa & Nairobi | Ágata Jiménez, Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa/Nairobi | Ágata Jiménez
Comments: 11
Kudos: 42





	You Remind Me of Someone

Nairobi couldn’t sleep. She’d had too much caffeine, or maybe she was already starting to feel jittery about the heist that was still six weeks away. At 3am, when she was still wide awake, she gave up, pulled on a robe, grabbed a pack of cigarettes, and padded quietly through the hall to go out to the balcony for a smoke. As she passed Tokyo’s room, she heard voices and the rhythmic thumping of a headboard. Nairobi snorted. Subtle, Tokyo.

The summer night was cool and crisp as she emerged onto the balcony, and the country sky was dark and full of stars. Nairobi paused for a moment, taking in a deep breath of the fresh air, filled with the scent of grass and dew. After three and a half years in prison, she’d come to truly appreciate moments like this, and she closed her eyes briefly to just feel the night air on her skin.

“Good evening, Nairobi,” came a voice from the shadows. Nairobi nearly jumped.

“Fuck, Berlin, I didn’t see you there,” she said, shaking her head. He was sitting in a wrought iron chair towards the side of the balcony, wearing a green smoking jacket and clutching…

“Are you smoking a joint?” Nairobi asked, surprised. 

Berlin chuckled lightly. “You’re so surprised, Nairobi. Did you think that a man of taste couldn’t also enjoy a bit of relaxation?”

Nairobi raised her eyebrows, but made her way over to where he was sitting and took the chair next to him. He looked over at her and wordlessly offered the joint. Nairobi accepted, taking a slow hit.

“Mmmm,” she said, exhaling gratefully and handing it back to him. They sat in silence for several minutes, passing the joint between them and looking up at the stars, which seemed to shine especially brightly that night.

“So why are you awake?” Nairobi asked finally.

“I have chronic insomnia,” Berlin said lightly. “And I also happen to share a wall with Tokyo.”

Nairobi snorted again. “Those two,” she said, shaking her head. “You’d think _they_ were the ones who’d just gotten out of prison the way they go at it.”

Berlin glanced at her. “It’s hard for young people to contain their urges,” he mused. “It takes a very mature sexuality to resist one’s animal impulses.”

Nairobi laughed, but her breath caught on the smoke still in her throat and it turned into a cough. “Is that why you haven’t tried to sleep with me, then?” she asked him teasingly once she regained her breath.

He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, eyes scanning her body. Nairobi suddenly felt very exposed in her small shorts and thin robe, though truth be told, she didn’t mind him looking.

“I’ve thought about it, naturally,” he says nonchalantly. “But I’m a professional, Nairobi.”

Nairobi couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Everyone here was so damn professional. She had been looking forward to getting laid so much when she got out of prison, just to end up here, in this convent of a house, with a bunch of attractive men who were sticklers for arbitrary self-imposed rules. It was driving her crazy.

“You and the Professor,” she muttered.

He smiled lightly, still looking at her. “You’re very obvious about that, you know.”

Nairobi shook her head. “That man,” she said wistfully. “It’s like a fifteen-year-old nerd woke up one day as a hot forty-year-old and still hasn’t noticed.”

Berlin chuckled here. “Ah, Nairobi,” he said. “It’s not his nerdiness you find attractive, it’s his power. You see him as an authority figure. It’s a very basic female instinct, you see it all the time.”

Nairobi rolled her eyes again, unwilling to deign this with a response. She simply reached for the joint and took another slow hit, enjoying the soothing buzz she was starting to feel.

“You remind me of my first wife,” Berlin mused.

Nairobi looked at him in surprise. “Me?” she asked, feeling slightly shocked that she bore any resemblance to the sort of woman who Berlin would marry.

“Si, Nairobi. You have the same pluck.”

Nairobi made a face.

Berlin laughed. “She was a firecracker, Viola. She was an Italian con-artist who worked in Saint-Tropez. A very confident woman, Nairobi – trust me, the comparison is flattering.”

“Why did she leave you, then?” Nairobi asked.

He exhaled slowly. “We had our differences,” he said. “Love rarely goes the way you think it will.”

Nairobi looked at his face. It was furrowed, hard to read.

“Falling in love is such a beautiful thing,” he continued. “It’s a dance as old as time, like poetry for the soul. But being married?” He shook his head. “You marry this beautiful angel, just to realize a few months later that she yells and whines and shits just like everyone else.” His voice was tinged with bitterness.

“So she left because you were an asshole?” Nairobi surmised, lips twitching.

“She certainly used that word at least once,” Berlin allowed, leaning back in his chair. 

Nairobi looked at him again, and for the first time decided to voice the resemblance she herself had been noticing for weeks. “You remind me of my ex-husband,” she admitted.

If he was surprised to hear that she’d been married, he didn’t show it. “Then you have impeccable taste, Nairobi,” he said.

Nairobi gave him an exasperated look. “He was an asshole, just like you.”

Berlin re-lit the joint and took a slow drag. “I like to think that every asshole is unique,” he responded placidly. “Nice guys, they’re all the same, so dull. But us sons of bitches – we’re each an asshole in our own special way.”

Nairobi snorted. “That’s exactly the kind of thing he would have said.”

“So he was a clever asshole,” Berlin observed, grinning.

“Si,” Nairobi acknowledged. Antonio had had the same absurd grandiosity, the same brand of cocky intelligence as the man sitting next to her. “He was a criminal, too.”

Berlin glanced at her again. “A good one, I hope.”

“He ran a drug ring,” she said. “He used to buy my counterfeit notes; it’s how we met.”

“How charmingly romantic.”

“Almost as charmingly romantic as five divorces,” Nairobi shot back.

Berlin shrugged. “Touché, señorita.” They were quiet for another minute. Then finally Berlin spoke. “So what happened?” he asked.

Nairobi sighed. She hadn’t told anyone here about Antonio, and frankly she preferred it that way. He was in her past, and things were better that way. A part of her knew that Berlin was a shark that couldn’t be trusted, the last person she should be telling personal stories to. 

And yet, Nairobi found that it was strangely relieving to talk to someone who had an inkling of what a bad marriage was like. Tokyo, Denver, Rio – they were all still just kids in that way. It was fun, joking around with them, sneaking out at night, drinking and dancing like she was a teenager again. And they’d had rough lives too, she knew, or at least, Denver and Tokyo had. But there were things they wouldn’t get, and Antonio was one of them.

“He was convinced I was cheating on him,” Nairobi told him finally. “Then I got pregnant and he said it wasn’t his. We started fighting about it daily, then eventually the fights got violent. I left him after he grabbed my hair and bashed my head into the wall.”

“ _Were_ you cheating on him?” Berlin asked.

Nairobi made a noise of disgust. “If I was, would that justify it?” she asked.

Berlin paused. “Nothing justifies hurting a woman,” he said, but there was a note of regret in his voice that confirmed Nairobi’s suspicions about the supposedly charming man she sat next to. There was a darkness in his eyes, the same darkness she’d slept next to for nearly two years.

“I wasn’t cheating,” Nairobi said flatly. “He was just an asshole with a bad temper and a need to be in control. I suppose you can relate?”

Berlin pursed his lips and didn’t say anything. He set the extinguished joint in an ashtray.

“I thought so,” she said coolly.

There was a long pause. “I suppose you hate me, then,” he observed.

Nairobi glanced at him. “I don’t hate you,” she sighed. “I just know who you are, Berlin. You don’t feel things the way normal people do. You could look into my eyes and choke me until I’m unconscious and you wouldn’t feel a thing.”

Berlin looked away. Nairobi could tell he wasn’t used to people seeing through his bullshit. After a moment, he stood up, moving to the rail that looked over the countryside that spread out before them.

“You’re right, Nairobi, I do have a temper,” he said, looking out at the dark night. “It gets me into trouble sometimes – it’s very hard for me when people don’t see the error of their ways. But respect must be earned, Nairobi, and it must be enforced. I have a firm moral code, a code which I would not break for a woman, a brother, or god almighty. If I have ever laid a hand on any person, male or female, it has only been in the service of my honor and my values.”

Nairobi laughed bitterly. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

He turned towards her, then, smiling. “Come here, Nairobi.”

Nairobi examined his face skeptically. His eyes had a peculiar softness to them that unsettled her. But still, she stood and joined him at the rail.

He looked into her eyes intently. And despite the coldness she’d always seen in him, as she looked into his eyes she could have sworn she saw something more – vulnerability. Regret, even. Nairobi found herself unable to tear her eyes away from his, her heart speeding up as they held each other’s gaze for a second, two, three, six, ten.

His hands came slowly to her wrists, which he took in his own. He began rubbing small circles with his thumbs, a gesture that was both uncomfortably intimate and strangely erotic. Nairobi gave him a questioning look, but he just shook his head lightly. Then a hand came to her cheek, brushing it gently, trailing down to her neck, tracing small circles at her throat with his thumb.

“Nairobi,” he whispered.

Nairobi moaned softly at the gentleness of his touch, closing her eyes briefly. Fuck, it had been a long time since a man had touched her like that. She found herself leaning into the touch, wanting his hands to explore her body more, craving the feeling of his arms wrapped around her. As she opened her eyes and met his again, his hands moved gently to her waist, and he leaned forward slowly, intently, until their foreheads were touching and she was overwhelmed by his smell and the feel of his body against hers. Fuck. Nairobi turned her chin up towards him, opening her mouth slightly, preparing to meet his lips.

Then he laughed and stepped back. “Nairobi, Nairobi,” he tsked, wagging a finger at her. “For someone who claims to see through bullshit, you’re quite easy to charm.”

Nairobi made a noise of frustration and turned away from him. “Fuck you, Berlin,” she said angrily.

He laughed again. “I told you, Nairobi, I’m a professional,” he said. “Besides, you’re not really my type.”

Nairobi flopped back into the chair and lit a cigarette. “You’re a bastard,” she told him, shaking her head.

Berlin flashed a charming smile at her. “I guess you have a type,” he said mockingly.

Nairobi leaned back. She deserved this. Serves her right for trying to have a genuine conversation with a man who was clearly a diagnosable psychopath.

“Don’t get down about yourself, though, Nairobi,” he said, clearly enjoying the feeling of having regained the upper hand in their conversation. “You’re a very strong woman with many wonderful traits.”

Nairobi just shook her head again, ignoring him. 

Berlin stretched. “I’m feeling much more relaxed now,” he mused. “Nairobi, I must thank you, you’re a very charming conversation partner. But I think it’s time for me to head to bed. I wouldn’t want to frustrate you any more.”

Nairobi gave him a look. “Good night, Berlin,” she said pointedly.

He headed back to the door. “Good night, Nairobi,” he said with a wink, and he disappeared into the house.

Once she was sure he was gone, Nairobi took another deep breath in, closing her eyes lightly and letting her mind take her back to five minutes earlier. She put a hand down her shorts and started rubbing herself, imagining Berlin pushing her against the railing, bending her over and taking her hard and fast right there on the balcony. She came quickly, with a quiet moan, then sat there for a moment, regaining her breath. She sighed bitterly and went back inside.

**Author's Note:**

> I was re-watching season 3 recently and noticed that if you freeze-frame on the scene in S3:E8 where Alicia Sierra is flipping though Nairobi’s files, one of the documents clearly lists her marital status as “divorced” – which got me wondering, and eventually led me to this little one-shot. I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
